some of my plants need more calcium

[pwb]

Its seems like some of my plants need more calcium again. I dont know how much calcium nitrate i would give them so last time i only give them litle. I have calcium nitrate and epsom salt and with that i could make calmag, correct? But how much calcium nitrate and how much epsom salt? I have seen some numbers like 500g calcium nitrate in 1 gallon water, but that must be to make calmag and then use in water? If i would make 3 gallon of water to water my chiliplants with, how much calcium nitrate and how much epsom salt?

 

[OneHighJedi]

I was in the same situation as you. I am currently growing some super hots, and after reading up on this forum, I realized that my plants also needed a good combo of calcium and magnesium since there is very little in the soil I'm using...
 
I've compared "price to volume" ratio's throughout ebay/amazon/plant supplement websites and this is by far the best you will get for the money.
 
https://www.kelp4less.com/shop/cal-mag-organic/
 
use coupon code : K4LFLY5 . Which basically ensures free shipping.
 
This stuff works. My plants were starting wrinkle and curl up a little bit. But after feeding them this stuff, AS LITTLE AS 1TSP PER GALLON, which feeds 6-7 of my 5gal plants, my babies were doing better than ever.
 
It will last you a VERY long time.

 

[Dave2000]

Pictures might help. 
 
What deficiency signs are they showing?
 
When did you last give them calcium, how much, and are they in pots or the ground? 
 
What is your water source and does it have calcium in it as evidenced by being hard, leaving mineral deposits on faucets and other water fixtures?
 
500g /gallon seems like far too much to me.  Did you mean 500mg?  A better ratio might be closer to 1 teaspoon per gallon of water or less, about a gram or two.  How many plants are you going to spread this out among watering them?
 

use coupon code : K4LFLY5 . Which basically ensures free shipping.

 
to Norway? 

 

[queequeg152]

its very unlikely, tho ive never tried, that one could dissolve 500grams of calcium nitrate into a single gallon, distilled or otherwise, of water.
 
if you want to make 'cal-mag' you first must know what concentration ratio you want... 1:100 being the most common for commercial injection units.
 
then you must know what ratio of calcium or nitrogen to magnesium you need.
 
finally, you need to buy some magnesium nitrate, because Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate, and is not compatable with concentrated solutions of calcium nitrate.
 
mixing the two, even at 1:100 will result in the precipitation of calcium sulfate.
 
there is no point in making your own premixed liquid concentrates unless you are fertigating from stock tanks, or injecting with dosatrons etc.
get a decent gram scale, and mix your ferts as you use them, in like 10 gallon batches at least. if you have a very accurate scale, down to 10ths of a gram atleast, feel free to mix smaller batches.
 
check the math, but 2.23 grams of calcium nitrate per gallon yields 100mg/L free calcium 

 

[OneHighJedi]

Pictures might help. 
 
What deficiency signs are they showing?
 
When did you last give them calcium, how much, and are they in pots or the ground? 
 
What is your water source and does it have calcium in it as evidenced by being hard, leaving mineral deposits on faucets and other water fixtures?
 
500g /gallon seems like far too much to me.  Did you mean 500mg?  A better ratio might be closer to 1 teaspoon per gallon of water or less, about a gram or two.  How many plants are you going to spread this out among watering them?
 

 
to Norway? 

 
1 TEASPOON per gallon. My bad.
 
This was my reaper before i started adding the cal/mag . Notice how the top leaves are crinkled .
 
http://i.imgur.com/HhkFdYn.jpg
 
This is it after 2 weeks of feeding.
 
http://i.imgur.com/0kFk7xc.jpg
 
That gallon of water is shared with 6 other plants which are all in 5 gallon buckets.
 
I don't know about the water. All I know is that it comes from the pipe sticking out in the back of the house lol.
 
 
Oh and on that shipping, IDK man haha . Forgot you international buyers pay a little extra :p

 

[pwb]

Last time my plants (leafs) started to get curled, then i gave them some calcium nitrate and not filtered well water. We got water from a ground well and there is a lot of calcium in that and we have a filter that use salt to remove the calcium. After i started to give them unfiltered water and some calcium nitrate the new leafs started to grow fine. I have only used unfiltered water after that and everything seems fine, but now i think some of the plants show sign of low calcium, i have also had 3 fruits on one plant that may have had BER, the first 10-15 fruits on that plant was ok, but i did have 3 now that was brown inside at the root. The picture show one of the leaf that i think show missing calcium?
 

 
1 TEASPOON per gallon. My bad.
 
This was my reaper before i started adding the cal/mag . Notice how the top leaves are crinkled .
 
http://i.imgur.com/HhkFdYn.jpg
 
This is it after 2 weeks of feeding.
 
http://i.imgur.com/0kFk7xc.jpg
 
That gallon of water is shared with 6 other plants which are all in 5 gallon buckets.
 
I don't know about the water. All I know is that it comes from the pipe sticking out in the back of the house lol.
 
 
Oh and on that shipping, IDK man haha . Forgot you international buyers pay a little extra

 
ok, i have a plant that the leafs looks like that. On this plant its possible to see where i started to use unfiltered water and when i did use calcium, the new leafs are ok but the old one isnt. I did gave it some calcium nitrate last day, maybe 1 teaspone on 3 gallon water and i maybe gave that plant 1/4 gallon or a litle less. Maybe i should give it a litle more next time. How much water and how often do you water that plant?

 

[OneHighJedi]

Dude the old leaves will forever be crinkled. The new growth should have a regular shape and form to indicate that the plant itself is healthy.
 
Don't worry about the old leaves, just make sure that the new ones don't turn out like them.
 
I water them until i can see the water starting to run out from the holes on the bottom of the bucket. After that, I wait a good 3 days.
 
I feed with fertilizer every 7-10 days and feed with the cal/mag every other watering, which is every 6 or 9 days if i remember lol

 

[Dave2000]

You know you don't have to pay for calcium right?  Egg shells, bone meal, gypsum wallboard from a construction site, etc. etc there are a lot of free sources that just don't act as fast as calcium nitrate so you mix them into the soil before transplant... next year.  Epsom salts aren't so easily available but are dirt cheap in the bath/medical isle at discount stores.

 

[queequeg152]

You know you don't have to pay for calcium right?  Egg shells, bone meal, gypsum wallboard from a construction site, etc. etc there are a lot of free sources that just don't act as fast as calcium nitrate so you mix them into the soil before transplant... next year.  Epsom salts aren't so easily available but are dirt cheap in the bath/medical isle at discount stores.

 
epsom salt IS freely available to plants, as it is, in its purist form, just magnesium sulfate. its actually more expensive than calcium nitrate.
 
its worth keeping in mind that, for about 2 dollars worth of calcium nitrate(not bulk price), you can mix approximately 100 gallons of solution.  how long do you think 100 gallons of fertilizer solution containing 200mg/l calcium &  300ish mg/l nitrate will last?
for me its like 6-9 weeks.
 
when purchased in bulk, 50 lb bags, its like 1 buck an lb. when purchased in palate quantities its like 50 cents an lb.
 
those pint bottles of cal-mag, have maby 50 cents worth of calcium nitrate, and magnesium nitrate. + some preservatives and colorings. 

 

[Dave2000]

^  You misunderstood what I wrote.  I mean epsom salts aren't easily, freely  available as-in you can just save egg shells or rummage through the garbage at a construction site to find sources of calcium for free but not to find sources of free, no-cost epsom salts.
 
Otherwise I don't think it's reasonable to equate "2 dollars worth" of a material you'd have to buy in bulk.  Even at only $1/lb in a 50lb bag, that's still $50 which is quite a lot to pay for something so easily found for free.  It's a better value than Cal-Mag for sure but still, all those "nickle and dime" expenses add up.  People have been growing plants as crops for thousands of  years without these kinds of expenses... and not having to bother with yet another thing to keep mixing up to water with on a regular basis.  Growing can be hard and expensive or cheap and easy.  This forum is mostly emphasizing the former.

 

[queequeg152]

Otherwise I don't think it's reasonable to equate "2 dollars worth" of a material you'd have to buy in bulk.  Even at only $1/lb in a 50lb bag, that's still $50 which is quite a lot to pay for something so easily found for free.  It's a better value than Cal-Mag for sure but still, all those "nickle and dime" expenses add up.  People have been growing plants as crops for thousands of  years without these kinds of expenses... and not having to bother with yet another thing to keep mixing up to water with on a regular basis.  Growing can be hard and expensive or cheap and easy.  This forum is mostly emphasizing the former.

i find it puzzleing that you equate calcium nitrate with hard and expensive. its clearly not. if anything its "easy" and "expensive". the amount of egg shells you would need to reach like 200mg/L free calcium in soil would require astronomical numbers of dumpster dives, and hardly could be considered easy.
 
yea people grew plants for a while prior to modern methods, but they did so badly.
 
well, if eggshells were even arguably as good as calcium nitrate is, i would probably agree with you, but sadly egg shells are just not a good source of calcium.
 
regarding the inconvenience of dissolving calcium nitrate. there are any number of 'top dress' fertilizers you add to containers every month or so, and slowly release ferts. I would not reccomend these, as they are far more expensive. how convenient is it to bake egg shells, and crush them down into powder?
 
its important to divorce the ideological issues from those of clear and obvious practicality. Dont use calcium nitrate because you dont like dem chemicals, or want to grow organically, but dont try to justify that decision by declaring it to be an expensive hassle, because it just is not.
 
even the organic folks grow blogs ive read, who grow some insane toms, often have to "cheat", by adding some calcium nitrate,  with some varieties who are especially sensitive to BER.
 
you dont need to buy calcium nitrate in bulk btw

 

[ColdSmoke]

Are you guys foliar feeding your cal mag applications?

 

[OneHighJedi]

Are you guys foliar feeding your cal mag applications?

 
nah man, i don't get up early enough .

 

[Dave2000]

i find it puzzleing that you equate calcium nitrate with hard and expensive. its clearly not. if anything its "easy" and "expensive". the amount of egg shells you would need to reach like 200mg/L free calcium in soil would require astronomical numbers of dumpster dives, and hardly could be considered easy.
 
yea people grew plants for a while prior to modern methods, but they did so badly.
 
well, if eggshells were even arguably as good as calcium nitrate is, i would probably agree with you, but sadly egg shells are just not a good source of calcium.
 
regarding the inconvenience of dissolving calcium nitrate. there are any number of 'top dress' fertilizers you add to containers every month or so, and slowly release ferts. I would not reccomend these, as they are far more expensive. how convenient is it to bake egg shells, and crush them down into powder?
 
its important to divorce the ideological issues from those of clear and obvious practicality. Dont use calcium nitrate because you dont like dem chemicals, or want to grow organically, but dont try to justify that decision by declaring it to be an expensive hassle, because it just is not.
 
even the organic folks grow blogs ive read, who grow some insane toms, often have to "cheat", by adding some calcium nitrate,  with some varieties who are especially sensitive to BER.
 
you dont need to buy calcium nitrate in bulk btw

 
Saving egg shells requires nothing more than throwing them in a bin next to my garbage can instead of the garbage can.  That may not be sufficient quantity from a single person's diet or a smaller family that doesn't eat many eggs, but for other people these kinds of kitchen scraps are a good option.  Stopping when you see new building construction and grabbing a piece of wallboard scrap is also little to no trouble at all.
 
Egg shells are an excellent source of calcium.  The whole point is to fortify the soil with a  SLOW RELEASE source at the beginning, before transplant, then not having to fool with it again.  You do not have to bake or ash then grind egg shells into powder.  Remember the point is SLOW RELEASE.  I just take a piece of 2x4 wood and stomp on the container full of shells for a minute and that is enough.  By the end of the season when I pull plants and turn in more compost, almost all egg shell has disintegrated.  Calcium nitrate doesn't even work well for areas that have a lot of rain as it just washes away.
 
You can do one of three things:  Start out with inadequate soil then keep trying to water in something to make up for it, or use natural sources as compost, or do a little of both.  Do whatever you wish, I was only pointing out a cheaper and easier way that works fine contrary to your assertion.
 
It is an expensive hassle.  I'm not talking about it in isolation but rather as one of many chores and expenses that cumulatively add up.  Every single extra effort and expense that can be eliminated is a step in the right direction, particularly when you can make use of material that would otherwise end up in landfills.
 
Organic folks grow blogs?  Again this is the opposite of my goal, to do LESS, not spend time writing a blog about doing MORE. 
I also grow huge tomatoes and find the solution to be a SLOW RELEASE source of calcium added before transplant.